I got the reference, what I’m baffled by is Danni’s insistence that referencing the game makes JessWitt and Brotato disgusting. JessWitt’s assumption that Danni is unaware of the game and thinks it’s an incest reference more or less makes sense, but seems to be a bit of a stretch.

Danny is clearly referencing 50-60’s era slang. Jess is making a joke about a game. I really have no idea where the incest part is coming from. Seems completely out of left field. Danni is vague about their disapproval. My only assumption is they either hate homosexuality or dad’s specifically.

I just assumed it was because Danni read it as the literal definition of “Daddy,” which would imply incest and possibly pedophilia, which could certainly explain the “disgusting” claim. Of course, one has to be very secluded to have not seen previous references to Dream Daddy somewhere, seeing as it seems to be referenced all over the place. 😛

At least his swearing off all women is coming along with making an effort to interact with women as people – even if he’s doing a mediocre job at that. I think he kind of gets what he needs to be doing and is putting the pieces in place to slowly, mediocre-ly do that.

It’s an extreme over-correction, but at least it’s a correction. Limiting his interaction with women to just Joyce, Amber, Dorothy (assuming she’s still speaking to him), and perhaps Leslie until he sorts some stuff out probably isn’t the worst way to go.

Though now I really want to know what’s gonna happen the next time he’s in gender studies.

He’s talked about how he’s a pariah… and yes, that’s probably a factor… but I’m thinking that it’s just as much of a low self-esteem issue. He doesn’t think there’s a “safe” way for him to interact with women — meaning, a way that he doesn’t cause some harm. Not that such a way doesn’t exist in general, but it doesn’t exist for HIM, because he’s toxic. So he quarantines himself. Which fixes… well, nothing, but at least he can tell himself (as he was doing before Joyce set him straight) that at least this way he isn’t hurting anyone.

One of the things about self-esteem issues is that they’re often coupled with a desire to isolate yourself (or aspects of yourself) so that no one else can see them, and there’s a million ways to rationalize that. If one of them (emotionless, meaningless hookups) falls apart, you can just find another.

I personally don’t see the problem. He didn’t cut out his female friends. If anything he’s talking to them as people more often than he did before. People don’t fix everything about themselves instantaneously. Dude needs a break from the ladies almost as much as they need a break from him. Remember like a week has passed in this comic. Nobody can fix them self that quickly.

If you order one, the bartender says “We ran out of ingredients, sorry. I mean, we had all the ingredients LAST month, but there just isn’t the same call for it anymore. But I heard there’s a bar around the corner that still serves them, I guess.” And when you go THERE, they just give you a PBR with a little umbrella in it and say “We’re calling it the Ukelele Hipster” ironically, see?

Unless the bar is the Horrible Revelation in Northampton, Massachusetts, in which case you are likely to just get punched in the mouth by one of the other patrons, likely Faye Whittaker. On the other hand, if you order a “Gentleman Ukulelist,” the bartender’ll rent you an antique tailcoat and top hat so you can take pictures.

Well, first, he is using outdated slang to ask how Joe is feeling, and then offering to play him a song on the ukulele. Then, he is clarifying that by “Daddy” he means another outdated slang term for someone who is cool. (I can’t really specify that any further without knowing what slang terms for cool exist in your first language. I don’t know any non-slang terms that describe coolness properly.)

That last part is a reference to a movie quote (“You had me at hello”) and has the contextual meaning of “You are trying to be supportive and calling me your best friend is totally sufficient in that regard.”

Don’t fret about our language being messed up. We only understand it because we were, like, held upside down by our ankles and dipped into it as children. (This is also why our heels do not speak English.)

You can read the Wikipedia article on Hipster (1940s subculture), and maybe Beatnik, to get more of a sense of where the phrases Danny is using come from (and also a sense of how outdated the slang is — it is literally decades older than he is).

As it says:

In 1939, the word hepster was used by Cab Calloway in the title of his Hepster’s Dictionary, which defines hep cat as “a guy who knows all the answers, understands jive”

I’m trying to think to myself where I heard/saw the terms used, and I can’t really remember. It certainly wasn’t from any of the primary sources mentioned. I suspect it might have been in cartoons or other parodies on television shows.

Come to think of it, Danny (via David Willis) might have heard the terms the same way.

like the comic- check it daily. coming to it fresh, with out having read any of your others, and i’m really enjoying the characterizations, that the plots are character-driven, and the humor (like the ukulele lmao). also like that most ppl are shown multi-dimensional, and a few aren’t- just like irl. thanks for all the work you put in 🙂

my fave comic so far (and it’s a tough choice) is the one where joyce tells joe why she likes her score. VERY unexpected and their relationship seems to be the subtlest romance/friendship, which i’m liking watching joe’s reactions and he is still clueless lol

i really like that you include ASL also, and multiple interpretations of characters like Sal and Amazi-girl

i really appreciate that your characters span the gamut of christian fervor.

i do have 1 question- what is the difference between the “jump to another comic” and the written links? Some are on both, but not all.

Panel 1: I like that Willis is showing Danny practicing. Like, this is something he cares about and wants to get right and is putting in the time for and that’s just a beautiful thing.

Panel 2: Ok, I need to give Joe a solid here. Like, I didn’t like some of his teasing before, but Joe here now knows his buddy is bi, so when Danny drops some queer slang accidentally, his first instinct is to check in sympathetically and without judgment even though it makes him a bit uncomfortable.

And then when he confirms that Danny has no fucking clue what he said, he just leaves a relatively neutral comment about checking out Urban Dictionary rather than being catty with him.

He really does care about supporting his friend’s sexuality 100% and it’s a really moving thing.

Panel 3: Danny is a cinnamon roll. That is all.

Panel 4: And this…

Others have commented on it above and yeah, it’s… not uncommon for the type of guy Joe is trying to recover from being, but it’s still… yeah.

Like, this poor-me martyrdom and over-reaction is part of thing of guys like Joe who get caught out and often it is part of a pattern of trying to dissuade call-outs.

Like, over-perform self-flagellation from receiving minor consequences and seeing the scope of shittiness you perpetuated. Make a show about how you’ve “sworn off any contact” with women as if that was the issue, and so on.

Often times when it goes down, it’s part of a ploy, making people feel tired of the emotional labor of dealing with the dude throwing a tantrum and acting like the issue was them being alone with women or being attracted to women rather than very specific predatory and assault-like behavior.

Like, that’s not what’s going on with Joe (I hope). He’s just immature, low on positive male role-models and prone to jags of self-pitying bullshit because he fears fully owning his behavior, actions, and attitudes and how they effect others, but knows he can’t just go back to being a shithead.

Hopefully he’ll get over it and start the real work of improving, but heck, if this is his current attitude?

Well, then, it’s a good thing he’s staying away from women until he sorts his shit out.

Panel 5: And well, it’s a step that he’s even sharing his emotions and worries and fears at all without worrying that “emasculates him”, which is probably why Danny sees through his bluster at the end and recognizes what a big step this is for Joe.

I don’t know, is not using words because they might have a sexual connotated meaning I never heard of really the way to go?
There’s loads of stuff in urbandictionary I don’t want to know about, so should I really need to check up there if a word I use has some kinky meaning, too?

I mean, as an ace person who sometimes misses sexual innuendos, I’m fully on the side of hell no, but given his old behavior was to make jokes about making sure Ethan had condoms, I feel this is a very tentative step up.

Joe is a lot about personal branding. He may have picked a rather toxic one to style himself after, and now when he has pulled out he has a hard time knowing what to do with himself (after, what? Two days? I’m sure he will sort it out eventually).

But he recognize Danny’s budding experience in self expression and is good with giving advice.

It’s so nice to see your comments down here again! Lovely, lovely analysis as always, Cerberus :3 . When I noticed that you hadn’t been posting recently I was a little worried- I hope you’re feeling better soon!

The Marriage Equality Bill passed the Australian federal House of Representatives half an hour ago, with no changes from the Senate’s version. It is scheduled to receive Royal Assent on Saturday morning. Marriage of gay and lesbian couples, of bisexuals marriage beloved ones of the same sex, and marriages of transsexual and intersexed persons will be legal from Saturday afternoon.

Okay, I stopped doing Grav Roulette posts a while back, but I have to do one for tonight, because Grav Roulette has given me Jacob.

I said that I’d accept Jacob as a grav a while back. And I meant it, too.

He’s a pretty great A-level guy. Maybe A+. Maybe I shouldn’t rank men. But he’s got integrity, compassion, a brain. He’s got a goofy sense of humor, even if he doesn’t pun enough. He’s pretty dense but then so am I, so that part fits. He’s religious when I’m…. not, but at least he’s in a pretty acceptably-liberal religion rather than…. not.

But here’s the thing. He’s organized when I’m not. He’s disciplined when I’m not. He gets shit done when I don’t. He NOTICES people when I live in my own world. He’s open when I instinctively equate openness with an opportunity for people to harass me. And all of those things are places where I’m broken, things I NEED to fix about myself, even if it means (as I’m increasingly sure it does) that I have to medicate myself until “myself” no longer exists. All the ways I suck, he’s awesome…

… and that means I don’t deserve a Jacob grav and it means he doesn’t represent me. So I’m just going to keep spinning until I get a Walky, because dammit, at least that’s HONEST.

things I NEED to fix about myself, even if it means (as I’m increasingly sure it does) that I have to medicate myself until “myself” no longer exists.”

Been there, done that, do *not* recommend.
The harder but more effective way appears to be learning how to love yourself. I hit a hell of a speed bump this weekend, but, falling down for a bit did make it clear the huge amount of progress I’d made.
Like, there’s still a part of me really scared of it, but she does tend to be scared of things that help 🙂

(Although, surprisingly few medications actually impede my sense of self. They just tend to have other inconvenient side-effects. Medications are just a tool; it’s the way you talked about them that worried me)

The overlap between Danny’s heartwarming embrace of his authentic self, and the fact that ‘self’ rhymes a lot with the most insufferable ironic-but-not tropes of hipster culture makes my urge to smother him with a pillow incredibly problematic.

I find it odd that Danny picked up the ukulele around the same time i did. i mean i know in reality you made this months in advance willis but damn if i don’t feel really dann-ish.

but it’s kinda weird how all the chords hes been doing have been like, stuff i’ve been learning too, it’s really realistic what chords he’s picked up so far. do you know the instrument at all, or just like, look up enough about it to do the strips?